Emberflame Ridge you know, it takes a village to raise a scheme

for @Orlaith
backdated to august 1

it felt…good, quite simply, to finally have something to do. tenuous as the order was. renard had practically had to drag it out of him, too, but regardless of its circumstances, here it was, laid in front of them. sagtannet was not worth their concern until praimfaya showed her hand, and they harbored no illusion that they could talk her motives out of her. if only she wasn’t very clearly some sort of spy.

…and what did it matter if she was? renard hummed, their smile widening. that deserved some thought.

but it would have to wait until later. one concern at a time, and their concern now was the court. quite a lot of enmity for such a distance; donovan insisted he’d only trespassed and said a few rude words, and renard didn’t believe him. the details, though, were less important than the reality. they had better things to do than drag the truth out of him.

if he wanted renard to help dig his grave, who were they to argue?

which brought them here. the ridge had been burnt, sometime in the not so distant past; there were parts where the trees were burnt black, the ground dark with ash. too exposed for renard’s taste, but the only option for a good view of the willows far below.

they slipped down the ridge anyways, black-on-black, a barely visible shadow under the overhang of clouds. the trees loomed ahead of them, a thick canopy of green – the ridge stretched much farther, miles before they could even be said to be approaching the willows, but they weren’t planning on duplicating donovan’s or riley’s stunning feats of diplomacy.

wind whistled through the trees. a gentle rain began, steadily, to fall.